Artists and community join forces to celebrate diversity in a mural in Coburg
“Painting Community, Singing Diversity” is the name of a new project that will bring artists and the community together to paint a mural at Coburg Library this coming Saturday, December 7th. The theme of the mural is recognising and celebrating the importance of diversity.
Multidisciplinary artist Katherine Gailer and renowned muralist Lucy Lucy have embarked on a journey of collaborative creativity to gather ideas and reflections from people in the area in order to create a design that is a true reflection of the local community’s diversity.
The project has involved community participation since the beginning. It started with an online consultation via the Facebook group “Painting Community Singing Diversity” which asked playful questions about memory, migration and belonging, followed by two face-to-face workshops earlier this month. The aim was to “explore what diversity truly means to the local residents and, at the same time, bring them closer to the project so that, when it comes to painting the mural, they feel like they own it as much as anyone else”.
This project was supported and funded by the Moreland Community Grants Program of Moreland City Council. We are also very grateful to Porter’s Paints for their generous contribution.
The local community is invited to contribute to the painting of the mural on Saturday December 7th, anytime between 10am and 5pm outside Coburg Library, Victoria Street Mall, Coburg. Everyone is welcome, no special skills or talents required.
Of course, we couldn’t possibly do this without music… so performing at Victoria Street Mall, throughout the day, will be: Avi Misra, Oscar Jimenez AKA ChibCha and Përolas (Liana Perillo and Fabian Aravalés). With support from Multicultural Arts Victoria.
The inspiration for this project, Gailer explains, comes from a similar experience she led in 2016 in Bogotá, Colombia, in which more than 100 people participated in the collective creation of a mural. The project was turned into a music video by Amaru Tribe’s frontmen Oscar Jimenez, which can be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFQJh5-DDxo
Casa Cultura, whose core aim is to harness the power of the arts as a tool for social change, sees this as an opportunity for an enduring mechanism to nurture key attitudes required to overcome cultural barriers such curiosity, openness and respect. Public art, in their opinion, is a highly cost-effective way of shaping consciousness and creating collective attitudes.
The mural will be unveiled on International Human Rights Day, Tuesday December 10th
For more information email Eyal at eyal@casacultura.org
